You must not know 'bout me...

This is the beginning of what is sure to be an exciting journey. The fact that wearing my hair chemical-free is a "journey" is absurd, but it is sadly true.
I have learned and been so inspired by so many other sisters' hair photos & albums, that I felt compelled to publish mine as well.

15 posts categorized "Current Affairs"

April 26, 2010

I learned something about myself tonight. I'm still working through it, so bear with me....

On some subconscious level, I feel uneasy speaking negatively publicly about white women. Today, on good authority, I learned that white Southern women have the highest divorce rate in the country. This news was released in response to the popular topic of "what's wrong with black women."

And yet, despite the ease with which the major media outlets speculate and report on the "trouble" with black women, I hesitated -- a lot -- to tweet what I had found out. Why??? That's problematic. Perhaps it my Southern upbringing. Perhaps I hesitated because I felt like I'd get backlash. Maybe I hestitated because I wondered if I had the right to comment on such a thing. And in some respects, I'm still not sure that I do. I mean, two wrongs don't make a right. I don't want to start bashing white women because I feel attacked.

However, I do think that my hesitancy is actually very illustrative of exactly why I needed to post this fact. Why is the nation so fixated with and feel so comfortable with publicizing the "ills" of one particular group? Why are we -- black women -- dragged through the mud without a second thought? Why are our supposed love woes fodder for ABC Nightline, while the white women's plight remains buried on NPR-like outlets. (No diss; I'm just saying.)

Black women aren't seen as delicate and fragile like white women, are we? We can be yelled at, dumped on, degraded, by people of all races and genders, even our own, and we are supposed to shake it off and not take it personally, not be too sensitive. Like other remnants of slavery, this stereotype that we can handle anything works to our detriment and results in our being used as the "mules of the world." Well, dammit, I'm sensitive and fragile, too! Protect me. Respect me.

December 05, 2008

"On Nov. 18, Bernstein was discussing the conditions under which African captives were taken to America in slave ships. She bound the two students' hands and feet with tape and had them crawl under a desk to simulate the experience, Monahan and Shand said. Monahan said the girls were not the only blacks in the class."

In what kind of world do you live in that you think this would be okay?

March 26, 2008

I hope that when he wrote this latest article for msn/foxsports, he was playing Devil's Advocate. Otherwise.... side-eye

Excerpt:

Would someone please write a handbook? "What Will and Won't Piss Black Folk Smooth the **** Off"; would be an international bestseller.

I'm black, and I'm pissed off most of the time, but I wouldn't leave home without the handbook. Not in these racist-ly confusing times. I can barely keep up with when I'm supposed to be disappointed as opposed to offended as opposed to being pissed smooth the **** off.

He is making reference to the controversy over the LeBron-Gisele cover on Vogue. His opinion on the photograph is not clear, i.e., I'm not sure if he thinks that LeBron is not imitating King Kong and black people are overreacting, or if he thinks that he is portrayed as the beast, but that LeBron (and other athletes) also perpetuate stereotypes, so why are black people mad now. I'm pretty sure it's the latter, but that's beside the point of this post. My issue is with Whitlock's line of reasoning.

One of the ways he thinks LeBron is making himself a beastly stereotype is via tattoos. Apparently, and this was news to me, black people get inked up to look like prisoners. Betcha didn't know that. Here I was thinking that we all had different minds and motivations. Silly me. No, no.

According to Whitlock, when LeBron "covered his body in tatts years ago, mimicking a death-row inmate, [he] invited people to jump to the conclusion that he's dangerous." Did LeBron say that he got tatted because he was "mimicking a death-row inmate?" Or is that just what Whitlock sees when he looks at him? You know, "we" can be prejudiced, too. Couldn't be imitating rock stars or skaters or being alternative, or hell, just plain liking tattoos? Nope. Not according to Whitlock. Per him, "Half the black players in the NBA take the court each night in front of white audiences tatted from neck to toe like they're shooting a scene for Prison (Fast)Break."

Thankfully, we have Jason to voice what is apparently our one collective mind as black people, which he does in an article replete with "us" and "we" in reference to black folks. We all get tats to look like prisoners, we all get mad about the same thing, and we all love Tyler Perry's movies.

Not.

But hey, Jason, folks gotta make money some way, I guess, and if coddling white people who feel troubled and who like to chalk black people up to being overly sensitive is how you get down, more power. But one request:

Please stop speaking for the rest of "us". "We" are not all of one mind. YOU are perpetuating the idea that "we" are, which makes "you" worse than "them", because "you" should know better.

Hmm, I wonder why msn.com is highlighting this article as one of their headlining stories?

March 13, 2008

Recently you were quoted in the Daily Breeze as saying, "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."

I partially agree with you. If Obama were a white man, he would not be in this position -- i.e., the position of dealing with this kind of bull. If Obama were a white man, he would ALREADY have the democratic nomination. If Obama were a white man, his race would be a non-issue in this campaign, not the divisive, hotbed topic that it is.

That's the thing that kills me about self-righteous white people like you who use that line "it's because their black." What you fail to realize is that we in many cases are just as talented, if not more, than our counterparts, yet our accomplishments are marred under a cloud of doubt as to whether we achieved them based on ability or based on our race, whereas our white peers get to just bask in the glory without having to defend the glory.

A long time ago, my mom told me of the mantra that her professor had taught the black students at UAPB in the 70's - "You got to be gold to pass for silver."

Recently a former white professor of mine suggested that if I were interested in the Ph.D. program, that I do even more than what was required for admission (e.g., get an article published). I was to do this, not to increase my chances of admission, but in her words, to quiet any naysayers who may say that I was accepted because I am black. Here was a white lady in effect confirming what that UAPB professor had said. And here you are proving that no matter how golden you are and what you achieve, there are always going to be Ferraros who try to use your skin color to discount your achievements.

"Lucky to be who he is," huh? Oversimplify much?

Senator Obama is a gifted leader who has put forth much to be where he is today, and were he white, he probably would not have had to work half as hard.

March 11, 2008

By now nearly everyone not living under a rock has heard the story and seen this photo,

with its accompanying caption (courtesy of cnn.com): "... with his wife, ..., by his side, apologizes to his family ...."One glance at the wife's face reveals what appears to be complete and utter sickness and disgust.

Just once, just once, I wanna see one of these wives go just ape-shit on somebody. I mean, just snap. Just start beating him up side his head, right on camera. Or just start mouthing, "you m****f**** " over and over. Something.

It always kills me that these momafukos have the ORDACITY (if I may use FOL's New York's pronunciation) to drag their wives out to support them and try to hold on to their political careers. How dare they! Bastard wasn't thinking about her when he was ordering prostitutes like pancakes.

September 27, 2007

Last month, I railed against CNN for the convenient times they choose to focus on Blacks and other people of color. So I was surprised, though saddened, by the front (web)page, breaking news tragic article about the missing black lady being found dead.

I don't recall knowing anything about this story until now, which is unfortunate. But at least they are acting as though we are newsworthy and matter, too. Even if it's just to quiet the critics. I don't care what the reason. As long as they make changes.

You can read about the tragic story here. So sad. She was only 28. So sorry for her family.

August 07, 2007

Black women around the country are reconsidering interracial relationships

They're taking cues from their favorite stars, as well as blogs and books

Statistics suggest American black women are among the least likely to marry

Some say they are frustrated by the narrow field of marriageable black men

From the title to the examples to the statistics to the "story highlights", something is just not sitting right. It's like the journalistic equivalent of a white person feeling permitted to air his/her disparaging feelings about blacks because his black friend speaks badly about black people.

When I'm not seeing our successes and achievements celebrated, and I'm not hearing about the prevalence of racial profiling, disparate sentencing, workplace bias, etc., then I don't need to hear about black men aren't as likely as their white male counterparts to achieve a degree or the number of black men in jail.

To me, this article felt like a way to dump on black men -- which by extension, is black people -- and say, "See, they don't even like each other." In fact, that is almost an exact quote they used from Tim Alexander, director of Diary of a Tired Black Man, ""To a certain degree, black people are sick of each other."

They stick jabs like that throughout the article. Like this paragraph, following the introduction about black women reconsidering attitudes towards interracial dating, made up of the lone sentence:

It comes as statistics suggest American black women are among the least likely to marry.

Their wording, their sentence placement, their quotes, make us sound like we are just some unwanted stray cats, slumping along, kicked to the curb by our own kind, "All the black men literally pushed (us) out the way to talk to the blondes," hoping for kindness from the ones who used to abuse us, "I'm not saying that white men are the answer to all our problems," Jones said. "I'm just saying that they offer a different solution."

Yeah, something stinks. And it's thisarticle.

How about an article on the number of white women dating black men, and why they've "abandoned" their men? Or why couldn't even this article have been about more white men searching out black women.

Why couldn't we be the sought after item?

Why is an interracial relationship (black/white) automatically spoken of in terms of the the black person abandoning his race, "trying to come up?"

Until CNN is putting abducted people of color on the news the way they do whites, until CNN makes travesties of justice like what's happening with the Jena 6 front page the way they did the Duke Lacrosse case, until a whole helluva lot changes, Imma need them not to worry about who black people are or are not rejecting in relationships.

Principal, teacher quit after sex video surfaces

POSTED: 11:06 p.m. EDT, April 13, 2007

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- A principal and a teacher at a suburban elementary school quit amid allegations they were caught on video having sex in the principal's office, authorities say.

In keeping with Cook County's reputation for bare-knuckle politics, the scandal broke after copies of the sex tape were mailed anonymously to parents this week, just days before a contested school board election.

The case has also created something of a mystery: Who planted the camera that recorded the action?[Summer says, "See Story #1 above. Mystery solved."]